Public comment period underway on Rosemont’s Air Quality Permit after state strips Pima County of permitting authority

Posted on August 9, 2012 by admin

The Arizona Department of Environmental Quality’s decision to strip Pima County of its authority to issue an air quality permit for the Rosemont Copper Company has triggered a 60-day public comment period on a draft permit.

The Arizona Daily Star reports that ADEQ said it is proposing to approve a Rosemont air-quality permit, will hold public hearings in September and October and decide by mid-February.

The agency’s officials wrote county officials on August 2 that they are providing “regulatory certainty” for the permitting, which has lasted well over a year and drawn two Rosemont lawsuits against the county.

The mining company appealed last year to the state to take the permitting process over, on the grounds that the state, not the county, has legal jurisdiction.

The Daily Star reported that ADEQ said its move to take over the permit stems from a Pima County Superior Court judge’s July 5 ruling that the county’s denial of the permit was “arbitrary and capricious.”

The judge didn’t order the county to issue a permit, but did order it to take more information from the company on what legal requirements Rosemont Copper must meet.

Pima County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry accused the state of trying to put Rosemont’s approval “on a fast track,” since the state only posted a public notice about the permit last week and has already started taking comments.

The draft Arizona Department of Environmental Quality air quality permit for the Rosemont Mine is at www.azdeq.gov/download/calendar/080312dp2.pdf

Written comments must be sent by Oct. 9 to Balaji Vaidyanathan, air quality permits section manager, ADEQ, 1110 W. Washington St., 3415A-1, Phoenix, AZ 85007 or emailed to rosemontairpermit@azdeq.gov

ADEQ will hold a public hearing on the permit at 6 p.m., Oct. 9, at the Sycamore Elementary School, 16701 S. Houghton Road, in Vail. A hearing will be held in mid-September at a location to be determined.

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Augusta Resources Earns an F

Posted on July 16, 2012 by admin

The investor web-site InvestorPlace.com, graded the stock of Rosemont Copper’s parent company, Augusta Resource, as an F as a potential investment.  This low grade is a result of Augusta’s “Earnings Growth, Earnings Momentum, and Earnings Revisions.”  It is also said that Augusta’s “Equity and Cash Flow also get F’s.”

Click here for to read the grades for yourself.

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ROSEMONT GIVEN 30 DAYS TO SUBMIT UPDATED AIR QUALITY PERMIT APPLICATION TO PIMA COUNTY

Posted on July 11, 2012 by admin

CORRECTION: In an earlier post, RMT incorrectly reported that a Pima County Superior Court judge ordered Rosemont Copper Company to submit an amended air quality permit application within 30 days. In fact, the court has given Rosemont the opportunity to resubmit its application within 30 days. Rosemont has indicated it will resubmit the application.

Pima County Superior Court Judge Kenneth Lee has given Rosemont Copper Company 30 days to submit a complete air quality permit application to Pima County and for the county to make a decision on the application in a timely manner.

In a July 5 ruling, Judge Lee determined that Rosemont Copper’s application failed to include citations to all applicable air quality requirements, and therefore was incomplete and needed to be resubmitted.

The ruling clears the technical and procedural issues that have delayed the county’s decision on Rosemont’s request for an air quality permit to operate the proposed Rosemont Copper mine on the Coronado National Forest south of Tucson.

Pima County rejected Rosemont Copper’s air permit application in September 2011 for being incomplete. Last January, Rosemont Copper challenged the county’s decision by filing suit in Pima County Superior Court.

Judge Lee ruled that Pima County acted in an “arbitrary and capricious” manner when it rejected Rosemont Copper’s application because the county had not rejected other air quality permit applications that did not include the citations to all applicable air quality requirements.

But the court let stand the requirement that Rosemont’s application include the citations and set a 30-day deadline for the company to do so.

The court also denied Rosemont Copper’s request for summary declaratory relief and summary judgment. In doing so, the court did not rule on any of Rosemont’s other arguments, including a legal issue over whether state air quality standards or Pima County’s air quality standards apply to Rosemont’s permit.

The Arizona Daily Star reported that Rosemont intends to submit air quality applications to both the county and the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality.

A copy of the Judge’s decision can be downloaded here.

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KOLD-TV Rebuttal: Sheila Dagucon of Save the Scenic Santa Ritas

Posted on July 3, 2012 by admin

Save the Scenic Santa Ritas board member Sheila Dagucon on Tuesday responded to a KOLD editorial that called for quick approval of remaining permits needed to begin construction of the proposed Rosemont open pit copper mine on the Coronado National Forest south of Tucson.

In a 90-second rebuttal broadcast on July 3 and 4, Ms. Dagucon clearly laid out the case against construction of the mile wide, half-mile deep copper mine that would destroy the northeastern flank of the Santa Rita Mountains.

“It’s simply not in Southern Arizona’s best interest to allow foreign speculators to blow a massive hole in the Santa Rita Mountains, pay no royalties to Americans for the use of our public lands or for the copper they extract, take unlimited quantities of our groundwater, and then dump billions of tons of toxic mine waste into streams and valleys of the Coronado National Forest, potentially polluting the Tucson area water supply for generations to come,” she said.

The entire text and video of Ms. Dagucon’s comments can be found here.

 

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AUGUSTA RESOURCE’S CEO GIL CLAUSEN TENDERS RESIGNATION FROM JAGUAR MINING BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Posted on July 3, 2012 by admin

Shareholders cite Clausen’s “exceedingly poor decision-making”, “gross failures of judgment” and “serious conflicts of interest”

Augusta Resource Corporation CEO Gil Clausen submitted his resignation from the board of directors of Jaguar Mining Corporation last Friday following a shareholder revolt aimed at forcing Clausen and two other directors off the board.

Mr. Clausen is the highest profile executive of Augusta Resource, whose subsidiary, Rosemont Copper Company, is seeking to a build a massive open pit copper mine in the Santa Rita Mountains on the Coronado National Forest south of Tucson.

Mr. Clausen’s offer to resign as Jaguar’s director could complicate Augusta’s efforts to avert a cash flow crisis and secure $404 million in long-term loans needed to construct the Rosemont mine.

Jaguar has gold mining operations in Brazil.

Bristol Investment Partners, LLC, Jaguar’s largest single investor, led the shareholder insurrection that resulted in more votes being withheld for Mr. Clausen, Gary German and John Andrews than were cast in favor of their reelection to the board.

All three offered their resignation following the meeting, with Mr. German stepping down immediately as Jaguar’s chairman.

The resignations, however, are not immediately effective.

“During the next 90 days, following receipt of a recommendation from Jaguar’s Corporate Governance Committee, the Board of Directors will consider each such resignation and announce its decision,” the company stated in a press release.

Jaguar has a six-member board of directors and it is unclear what role Messrs. Clausen, German and Andrews will have in determining whether to accept their individual resignations.

In a June 13 letter to Jaguar, Bristol Investment sharply criticized the three directors for “exceedingly poor decision-making and gross failures of judgment” and “serious conflicts of interest that impugn” their abilities to serve as directors.

Last week, prior to the June 29 Jaguar annual meeting, Bristol released a second letter it had sent to Jaguar and included excerpts from Glass Lewis, an independent proxy advisory firm, that also sharply criticized the actions of the three Jaguar directors.

Glass Lewis stated: “After review, we believe that shareholders should be troubled by the complaints brought forth by Bristol, as they certainly raise questions regarding the board’s ability to act in shareholders’ best interests.”

Bristol Investment cites the three directors’ handling of an all-cash offer last November by Shandong Gold Group to buy Jaguar for $9.30 a share. The offer represented a 73 percent premium over Jaguar’s share price of $5.39.

Jaguar did not accept the Shandong offer, which Bristol says was an “ill-advised and reckless gamble” that “backfired completely, inflicting enormous damage on Jaguar’s shareholders.”

Bristol claims that Mesrrs. Clausen, German and Andrews stood to reap millions of dollars in stock benefits if Jaguar was sold for $10 a share or more. Jaguar was trading at $1.19 at midday Tuesday.

Jaguar is generating negative free cash flow, and has serious balance sheet concerns with just $50-million of remaining cash and more than $300-million in debt, the Financial Post reported Tuesday.

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